Chris Davis is arguably the American League's Most Valuable Player this season, pacing Major League Baseball with 33 home runs. / Joy R. Absalon, USA TODAY Sports

by Matt Slovin, USA TODAY Sports

by Matt Slovin, USA TODAY Sports

BALTIMORE -- At the 2011 non-waiver trade deadline, the Texas Rangers felt they were one move away from not just making the World Series as they had the year before, but winning it.

Unwittingly, they delivered a blossoming star into the hands of the Baltimore Orioles.

Texas's fate was the same that year, losing to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. And though the Rangers fell short of their ultimate goal, the effects of their midseason deal that sent Chris Davis to the Orioles have never been more apparent.

Davis is arguably the American League's Most Valuable Player this season, pacing Major League Baseball with 33 home runs. His 85 RBI are second only to Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers, who will likely be Davis' main competitor for MVP.

Monday night, the Rangers came face-to-face with Davis the MVP candidate, rather than the struggling, strikeout-prone young hitter they nurtured, but ultimately could not wait to blossom.

Now, watching Davis thrive in a different uniform is a reality that Rangers assistant general manager Thad Levine and his boss, general manager Jon Daniels, has to live with.

Surely, it's even more tempting to think of what could've been when Davis is playing against his former team, as he is this week at Camden Yards. But Levine knows it was a move that, ultimately, had to be made.

He came to Baltimore, along with then-starting pitcher Tommy Hunter, in a deal for set-up man Koji Uehara, who did, in fact, play a key bullpen role for the pennant-winning Rangers.

"We had come to a point where it was going to be less likely for him to get everyday at-bats for us," Levine said. "We recognized when we traded him that we were giving him to a team that was going to be able to give him everyday at-bats. We always viewed him as a guy who you were going to need to let play for 500-plus plate appearances."

But making enough contact to earn those plate appearances was Davis' eternal challenge in Texas.

The most plate appearances he received there was 419 in 2009. Sure enough, last year, when he finally crossed the magical 500 plate appearances mark Texas had set for him, Davis put up career-high power numbers for the Orioles. This year, he's on pace for roughly 574 at-bats and his numbers are MVP-worthy.

After a year of platooning at first base with Mark Reynolds, now with the Cleveland Indians, Davis no longer has to worry about his playing time. In Texas, he was always, as Levine says, "looking over his shoulder."

"Asking a guy like that to play infrequently doesn't put him in the best position," Levine said.

His failings - such as his 150 strikeouts in 391 at-bats in 2009 opened the door for others, such as Justin Smoak and Mitch Moreland, to steal at-bats, exacerbating the pressure he felt playing in his home state in front of fans who knew his capabilities.

Manager Ron Washington said the Chris Davis he'll face this week is, for the most part, the same player he coached in Texas.

"It's the same Chris Davis that was kicking (butt) in Triple-A," Washington said. "He just didn't show up until he came to Baltimore. He hadn't figured it out yet."

Trading away a player just a couple seasons away from an MVP-caliber year might be an extreme example of what can happen at this year's deadline. But those future implications always weigh heavily.

Though Levine and the Rangers knew just what they were giving up at the time, the trade itself didn't cause too big of a splash.

In fact, it was far more notable that Uehara was joining the Rangers than they were giving up on Davis.

"It's not like when he first came over (to Baltimore) he was a blockbuster," Washington said.

"If we would've kept him for six years, we would've had that Chris Davis."